Picture Play Magazine (Mar-Aug 1927)

52 At the sound of the word "wealth, the hieroglyphics marked The far-away look on the faces above is what results from the game called "thought writing. " The four players are Jean Hersholt, Dorothy Devore, Enid Bennett and Scott Sidney. Their "thoughts" are shown in the diagram below. A WISE man it was who, many years ago, upon sending his son out into the world, advised him, "My boy, be thou ever brave, honorable and true. But never once lose thy wits." The premium on wits has always been lofty. Wits have saved many a monarch his throne. They have won many a general his battle. And they have ever been the "open sesame" to social careers. In Hollywood, in particular, wits run high — I should add, even wide and very handsome. And all the various and assorted games that the film people have lately taken up make wits all the more necessary. If the gods have not been kindly in bestowing them upon one. one makes a special attempt to cultivate them. Competition is fearfully keen, with such bright minds in the swift running as Fairbanks, Chaplin, Barry-more, Bert Lytell, Harold Lloyd, Conrad Nagel, Jack Gilbert, Ramon Novarro, to mention only a lean few of the men players. And Mary Pickford, Norma and Constance Talmadge, Norma Shearer, Aileen Pringle, Estelle Taylor, Patsy Ruth Miller, Bebe Daniels, Marion Davies, Blanche Sweet, Leatrice Joy, Kathleen Clifford, among the women, are all extremely clever and very resourceful in their various playtime activities. When film people get together — which is often — wrist watches are not consulted every hour with a yawn. Neither is the prime wit of the evening the man who, in a frantic attempt to be entertaining, tells the joke of the traveling salesman and the dressmaker. Nor is he. the fellow who extravagantly fortifies himself with liquid refreshments and then staggers into the room wearing a cocked hat and expects everybody to become hysterical at the sight of him. Nor is he the immortal bore who recites feeble poems, accompanied by wretched imitations of the characters involved. Let's Play The whole movie colony, like a cally playing all the games they By Elza the four players immediately conceived 'A." "B" shows their respective reactions to the word "ambition." These types we all know. They manage somehow to invade almost every social circle. And Hollywood is not immune. But that part of Hollywood that I speak of is not represented by these types. It is the Hollywood that has been created and sustained by the Fairbankses, the De Milles, the Niblos, Anna Q. Nilsson, Lewis Stone, Corinne Griffith, the Ernest Torrences, the Wallace and Noah Beerys, Chaplin, the Talmadges, the Antonio Morenos, Louise Fazenda. the Harold Lloyds, Colleen Moore and scores and scores of others. It is the playground of all of these and countless other highly talented and capable people. They work hard, as you know. But they play equally hard. I have never known people to enjoy life more fully than do the people of the film colony. And the best part of it is that their enormous incomes are not always necessary to their greatest pleasures. They get the most enormous fun out of the simplest of games and, taken by and large, are as naive as children. They plunge into charades, guessing games or black magic with the enthusiasm and abandon of youngsters at their first party. A brilliant Hollywood columnist recently invoked the gods to rescue him from the boredom of charades, and indicated that people who played them had the mental stature of nincompoops. That was taking the humble little charade very, very seriously. And taking things seriously is exactly what Hollywood does not do — which probablv explains why charades form a pleasurable pastime in the colony on occasions when the mood inspires. Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks are wizards at this mental sport, and Pickfair is usually the setting. With,